1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to vehicles and, in particular, to aircraft. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to control panel systems in aircraft.
2. Background
In operating an aircraft, human operators may interact with various systems on an aircraft. This interaction is facilitated through the use of different types of control systems. The control systems may include keys, buttons, switches, and other types of controls. Additionally, the control systems also may include lights, displays, and other types of output devices. These control systems may be implemented as control units in which controls and a display screen are grouped together on the panel. With the different functions and locations for control panels in an aircraft, each control panel has a specialized design for a particular function and location of the control panel. Also, the design of the control panel may be based on the system controlled by the control panel.
For example, a control panel in a flight deck may include a display device and switches. In contrast, a control panel used in a cargo bay may have physical switches and lights. In yet another example, a control panel for an in-flight entertainment system in a passenger cabin may have a display in the form of a touch screen.
Also, the control panel may have physical buttons, switches, or other controls that are selected specifically for a particular system being controlled. In a similar fashion, the output devices also are tailored to the specific system managed by the control panel.
For example, a cargo bay may have switches in which each switch performs a particular function with respect to doors and other equipment in the cargo bay. The output devices may be lights with each light indicating the operation of a particular function in the cargo bay. As a result, control panels often are not interchangeable with each other.
Further, these control panels typically have larger numbers of wires, connectors, frames, and other components than desired. As a result, these control panels require larger amounts of space and have greater amounts of weight than desired for use in aircraft.
In addition, the maintenance effort for control units may be greater than desired. For example, an airline may maintain spare control units for all of the different types of control units used in the airline's aircraft. The number of spare control units may be greater than desired because the control units are not interchangeable with each other in aircraft. Further, with these different types of interfaces for systems on aircraft, increased complexity is present for assembling new aircraft.
Therefore, it would be illustrative to have a method and apparatus that takes into account at least some of the issues discussed above as well as possibly other issues.